<p>The GBIF Portal provides access to information on the distribution of species in the form of "species occurrence records" (the key details of an occurrence of a particular species at a particular place at a particular time).  One of the views that the portal offers is a summary of these data by country of occurrence.</p>

<h4>Searching for species that occur within a country</h4>

<p>The simplest way to find species data for a country is to enter the name of the country into the search box included on each page.</p>

<h5>Step-by-step guide</h5>

<ol type="1"><li> From the home page of the portal or any other page, enter the name of a country in the Search box and click "Go!".  The search will find the country with that name as well as those countries with names that include the search string. That is, a search on "Guinea" will return species records for Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, and Papua New Guinea.
</li><li> The portal will return lists of names that match the search string.  Results are grouped into four categories:
<ol type="a"><li> Scientific names
</li><li> Common names
</li><li> Countries
</li><li> Datasets
</li></ol></li><li> Select a name from the country category to see the <strong>Country overview</strong> page for the given country.</li></ol>


<h4>Browsing the country list</h4>

<p>Alternatively, it is possible to select a country by browsing an alphabetical list.  To access the <strong>Country browser</strong>, select the <a href="../countries/">Explore countries</a> link on the home page of the portal or the <a href="../countries/">COUNTRIES</a> link included in the banner at the top of every page.</p>

<h5>Step-by-step guide</h5>

<ol type="1"><li> From the home page of the portal, select <a href="../countries/">Explore countries</a>.  
</li><li> The portal will display a list of countries with names beginning with the letter "A" and links to pages for each other letter of the alphabet.  For each country the list gives a count of the number of species occurrence records accessible through the portal, the number of these that have coordinates, and a count of the species known to occur in the country on the basis of these records.
</li><li> Select a country name to see the <strong>Country overview</strong> page for the given country.</li></ol>

<p>For an example of this, see <a href="indonesiarecords">Finding information about datasets that contain records from Indonesia</a></p>

<h4>Country Overview Page</h4>

<p>The <strong>Country overview</strong> page summarises available information on the species that occur in the country.  Several of the links on this page lead to the <a href="../occurrences/">Occurrence search</a> page - see <a href="occurrence">Searching for occurrences</a> for more information on using that page.</p>

<h5>Step-by-step guide</h5>

<ol type="1"><li> The <strong>Country overview</strong> provides a map for all available georeferenced records from the country (all species).  Clicking on the map will zoom to higher detail (down to a display showing the density of records for the cell size 0.1 by 0.1 degree); attempting to zoom further then links directly to the <strong>Occurrence search</strong> page, from whence one can explore the records that occur in the selected cell.
</li><li> The map includes only records with coordinates (remember that there may be other records for the country without coordinates) that occur within the boundaries of the country. Georeferenced records can be seen by selecting the link to "View all occurrences" from the country.  See <a href="maps">Maps in the GBIF portal</a> for more information on using these maps.
</li><li> The page includes an "Actions" box with quick links for the country 
<ol type="a"><li> "Explore occurrences" opens the <a href="../occurrences/">Occurrence search</a> page to see occurrence records identified as occurring in the country.  This is a combination of records that include the name of the country as the country of occurrence, as well as other records with coordinates that fall within the country.

</li><li> "List datasets with occurrences in …" opens a list of data publishers that are sharing occurrence data relating to the country.  It is possible to select one or more publishers from this list and view only their records for the selected country. For an example of this, see <a href="indonesiarecords">Finding information about datasets that contain records from Indonesia</a>
</li><li> Download options include downloading records, formatting the download for display in Google Earth, getting more information about the publishers of data relating to the selected country, and data publishers located in that country.</li></ol></li></ol>

<p>For an example of Using the Country search to: 
<ul><li> Find information on a group of organisms in a country, see <a href="ecuadorplants">Finding information on plants recorded in Ecuador</a>.
</li><li>Find information on institutions or organisations in a country that provide data to the GBIF network, see <a href="denmarkproviders">Finding data publishers in Denmark</a>.</li></ul>
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